


the one with the consistent parenting

by snsk



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Domestic, M/M, baby fever, the phuture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3915622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a dialogue heavy fluff piece about dan and phil arguing about baby names, long-remembered pets, and video editing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the one with the consistent parenting

**Author's Note:**

> "you're gonna confuse him! his name is FLINT"
> 
> "we need to be consistent parents" 
> 
> dan and phil, dragon city gaming vid

“If we had a child,” said Phil conversationally, “would you name it Susan?”

“Susan’s a nice name,” Dan said. “I like Susan.”

“We’ve confirmed that.”

“It’s a pretty name!”

“A little baby girl,” Phil continued, “with your hair and my eyes--”

“--that’s not quite how science works yet--”

“You’d name her Susan.”

“What’s wrong with Susan?”

“I don’t know.” Phil tapped on his phone for a bit. “Famous Susans include Boyle, Sarandon and Collins.”

“Is the last one that romance novelist?”

“No, she’s a politician.”

Dan shrugged. “Susan Lester. Now that’s a no-nonsense name.”

“Lester,” Phil said wonderingly, sidetracked.

“Susan Howell sounds awful. Should I edit this out?” The pointer hovered over a couple of frames.

“The cake pun?”

“Mm-hm.”

“No, that was funny.”

“Eh. I’ve made better.” Dan made a face, moved on. 

“When I think of Susan, I think of Narnia. It makes me sad.”

“Oh,” said Dan. “The one who got left behind?”

“Unnecessarily,” Phil stressed. “Just because she liked dresses and parties-- her whole family died and went to heaven but she didn’t know that and she was left behind to mourn them because she was being a teenager--”

“Let’s be real, C.S Lewis was problematic as fuck. The disturbing lion god--”

“I think he was a metaphor for, like, Jesus.”

Dan squinted. “Well, that’s got my mind blown for the next week.”

“Hold on, put this on here,” Phil said, wresting control of the keyboard. He typed a caption out with a flourish.

“Fuck, why didn’t I think of that?” Dan said, giggling.

“When I was younger, I thought Zoe was a nice name,” Phil informed him.

“We can’t do that now, we’ll be accused of, like, playing favourites.”

“Gah.”

“It sucks having friends, I could’ve told you.”

“How about Allison?”

Dan narrowed his eyes at him. “Just because you’ve been on a Teen Wolf marathon--” 

“It’s a pretty name.”

“That show’s gone to shit now, I hope you know.”

“I do. It’s still a pretty name.”

“I know it is. Bring my mug over here?”

Phil drummed his fingers on the handle. “How about if it’s a boy?”

“Dil,” Dan said with finality.

“Dilington,” Phil agreed, grinning.

“Dilington Howlter. The kids at school will love it.”

“They’ll lap it up. I think Adam’s nice.”

“Adam’s nice. Not as nice as, say, Philip Arthur Lester The Second.”

“I think that might be even worse than Dilington,” Phil said in awe.

Dan smirked and added their overused well-beloved earthquake effect to the video.

“Jessica,” he volunteered after a few minutes. “Jess, in the interest of gender neutrality. If they wanted to change it.”

“Danielle,” Phil said. “Dani, in the interest of genderized names being a social construct.”

“Is genderized a word?”

“Probably not.”

“You wanna name our child after me?”

“Dani Lester,” Phil said dreamily.

Most people would have missed Dan’s answering dimple. Phil was not most people. But all he said was: “Do you know how much flak I’d get if the child was named after me?”

“That’s true,” sighed Phil. “I suppose we could go the Twilight route and name her after both our mothers.”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking right now. That’s vaguely terrifying.”

“You really want Susan?” Phil asked.

Loftily: “It’s an option.”

“What if we can’t even decide upon its name, Dan,” Phil despaired. “What are we supposed to be able to decide upon?”

“That we want it very much,” Dan said simply. 

Phil chanced a glance at him. His eyes were fixed on the last twenty seconds of their video.

“Susan’s a lovely name,” Phil said.

“It was also the name of your old goldfish,” Dan said. “I’m not naming our child over your dead pet.”

“You’re impossible,” Phil announced.

Dan was grinning like the maniac he was. “You should be grateful I wasn’t serious about Susan.”

“I knew you were having me on.”

“Did you really?”

“About eighty-three percent sure.”

“You know what, I think we should name our first kid Arthur,” Dan reflected, “and his sister Morgana.”

“Why would you do that to our children?”

“Just for, I don’t know, the sake of finding out if names really do hold all that power, if we really do turn out to be self fulfilling prophecies, if our place on earth and in this universe is to unknowingly reenact history over and over again.”

“You done?” 

“Just about.”

“You can solve that particular Existential Problem with our dogs.”

“I didn’t know we were adopting dogs as well.”

“Surprise?”

“I’d suggest a hamster for the kid like the one I had, but one day it’ll grow up and find the internet and be traumatised forever.”

“I’d love cats,” Phil said sadly.

“If you wanna live to see our kids off to uni-- I suggest not.”

“My allergy’s not that bad.”

“I’m not taking any chances on single parenting, I’d be a disaster.”

“I could die in a freak accident, and then what would you do, Daniel?”

Dan scoffed. “That’s what ancient Satanic rituals are for.”

“If I come back as a zombie, our kids won’t recognise me, they won’t let me parent them.”

“We’ll Warm Bodies you. Make up and everything... this conversation has gone to dark places.”

“I’m so upset that we’ll never be able to have a cat.”

“We could try one of those ugly hairless ones.”

Phil made a face. “Half the fun’s petting their silky, silky fur.”

“You said kids.”

“Huh?”

“Just now you said our kids won’t recognise you.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Phil said thoughtfully, all faux calm.

“We haven’t discussed anything past the first one.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“I liked having a brother.”

“So did I.”

A pause. Dan’s fingers on the mouse just slightly twitchy.

“Did we actually agree on something just like that?”

“D’you wanna argue about it?”

“Morgana’s a lovely name for a second child,” said Dan, bringing his mug to his lips to hide his smile.

“Edit that part out there, it’s useless and I have minor fringe gap. So is Sansa.”

“I actually quite like Sansa.”

“Hold off until he finishes the series,” said Phil. “I won’t have our child’s namesake dying horribly at another weirdly coloured wedding.”

Dan made an affirmative sound. “How’s that?”

“It’s great,” Phil said, not looking at the screen, suddenly itching to find out how the solid weight of a silver band would feel against his skin, how it would look pressed to that dimple as he felt the shape of Dan’s smile. “Great.”


End file.
